


The tell-tale heart

by comeaftermejackrobinson



Category: Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries
Genre: Angst, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-10
Updated: 2017-03-05
Packaged: 2018-09-23 07:52:30
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 9
Words: 17,355
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9647015
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/comeaftermejackrobinson/pseuds/comeaftermejackrobinson
Summary: She had mistakenly taken as a given that they would have all the time in the world.





	1. Chapter 1

_ Ella lo puede percibir  _

_ Ya nada puede impedir _

_ Mi fragilidad _

_ En el curso de las cosas  _

 

Corazón delator

Soda Stereo

 

 

She didn't know he had listed her as his next of kin.

 

He had never said anything.

 

She had never asked about his family. She had just supposed he had one. She felt guilty for her lack of interest now. He knew-  _ had known _ \- a lot about hers, and she had never bothered to find out about his- had he had siblings? Had his parents been alive? Had they lived close? Had he maintained contact often? 

 

It was too late now.

 

None of it mattered now.

 

She could still find the answer to those questions if she wanted to, of course, but the information would not come from him. 

 

Why hadn't she wanted to know more about him before? Because she had thought they had time. Because the anticipation and the mystery and the slow peeling of every layer that there was to him had been fun. Challenging. Stimulating. She had truly thought they had all the time in the world. What for exactly she hadn't known. 

 

She had wanted more from him. She had wanted to go from friends to lovers. She usually wasn't patient with men, she didn't wait for them, she didn't chase them.

 

He had been different, though.

 

Everything with him had been different.

 

She hadn't succeeded in bedding him upon their acquaintance. She didn't beg for anyone, she didn't waste her time, didn't give a man a second thought if they weren't immediately interested. He had been the exception to the rule, though, for that hadn't put her off. He had made her want his friendship, their partnership, in the long run more than she had ever wanted him- or any other lover- in her bed for a couple of hours.

 

There had been flirting, yes, and a touch here and there, and those sexually charged looks, and that kiss. And so she had never stopped wanting him, but she had valued the pleasure of his company more than she had the potential physical pleasure he could have given her as a lover. If there was something Detective Inspector Jack Robinson had known how to inspire, that had been respect. She had respected the walls he had built around himself after his divorce, or maybe even long before the end of his marriage.

 

And to her surprise, one day she had realized the walls had started to come down around them.

 

He had given her his scarf the week before. They had sat there together, the rest of the world lost to them, and he had looked at her with an intensity so beautiful and so intimate  _ her _ walls had been about to crumble. 

 

It had been a moment of realization for her, that look shared between them, his scarf around her delicate neck, and his lips curved in a smile she could have  _ almost  _ dared kissing off his handsome face had his former wife not been sitting so close to them with her fiancé.

 

It had been a moment of fright as well. So she had driven away from Melbourne for a couple of days to visit some friends. She needed space, she had thought. She needed time to think, she had thought.

 

Because she had mistakenly taken as a given that they would have all the time in the world and that she could afford the luxury to go to the seaside to think and ponder things. Because she had been sure he would be there when she returned, where else would he be? Where else could he go?

 

And now he was gone. 

 

She would never speak to him again, or hear his voice, or see him smile. 

 

The morning following her return to Melbourne, Mr. Butler had informed her she had a telephone call from the hospital about a detective John Robinson. 

 

Was she the Honorable Phryne Fisher? They had to notify her about a motor vehicle accident that had taken place earlier that day, they had said. Would she mind going to the morgue to identify the body that had been found in the wreckage? It would also be required that she filled in some paperwork to authorize its release for burial. Would she be taking care of the burial details? They were sorry for her loss, they had added before they hung up.

 

He had listed her as his next of kin and had never said a word about it. She could have killed him for putting her through this, really, had he not been already dead.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I miss you all dearly. I was going to wait until I got home next week to post this, but I am having a bad day today and I needed to do something to remind myself that even bad days can turn out good if you do something you love (in my case, the something I love is writing).
> 
> Thanks to @MissingMissFisher for the encouragement.
> 
> And thank you all for reading.


	2. Chapter 2

_Ella parece sospechar_

_Parece descubrir en mi_

_Que aquel amor_

_Es como un océano de fuego_

 

Corazón delator

Soda Stereo

 

She felt numb.

 

That was never good.

 

Numbness was the first symptom of shock for her.

 

But it was always a brief sensation, one that soon passed and gave way to something worse.

 

Awareness.

 

Understanding.

 

Loss.

 

Grief.

 

It had happened to her before, and each time had been more painful than the last. For the second whatever self-defense strategy her body and mind had used to close off temporarily wore out, unbearable pain made its presence known.

 

And then she was left breathless.

 

Cold.

 

Lost.

 

Grieving.

 

She had felt it with Janey.

 

She had felt it after the war.

 

She had felt it when Ms. Ross had shown up and she had thought they'd take Jane from her.

 

She was feeling it now.

 

Detective Inspector Jack Robinson was dead.

 

And the pain was unbearable.

 

A motor vehicle accident, they had said. Another car had impacted on his. Broken ribs, broken skull, broken neck. Instant death. Quick. Painless.

 

The news had impacted on her with such force she felt she had been in a wreckage herself, even if it was just a metaphor for the emotional state she was in. And she gave a damn if it sounded cliché, really. She gave a damn about saving some face. Her ribs, her neck, her skull, they all may have been intact, but she could have sworn that something within her had been damaged beyond repair. Her heart was broken.

 

Bert and Cec, who had been in the kitchen having tea and eating biscuits at the time, offered to drive her to the hospital. She had said yes. Or perhaps Dot, shocked and pale and whipping, had said yes- Phryne didn't remember; she didn't even remember what she had said or how she had said it. All she knew was that she had managed to get a couple of words out, and then Dot had begun to cry, and the two cabbies had cursed, and Mr. Butler had made her sit and given her something strong to drink that she hadn’t kept down. Someone had mentioned Mac, and then someone else (Dot, probably) had said Doctor McMillan was in a medical congress in Perth. And then Phryne had insisted she had to go to the hospital to identify the body- _Jack's body_ \- and Cec and Bert had said they'd drive her. If it hadn't been herself, then someone had agreed on her behalf and she had followed suit.

 

A little over an hour after receiving the phone call she was walking down the hall that led to the morgue with dear Dot- brave girl that she was- holding her hand. The kind gesture was supposed to bring Phryne reassurance. It was supposed to be a reminder that she wasn’t alone. Phryne appreciated it, but she wished Dot would let go of her hand. At the moment, physical contact was also a reminder she could feel someone else’s skin warm and comforting against hers, but Jack could not. She was alive, and Jack was not. There was a whole world out there for her to hold hands with, but she would never get to hold his hand again. She couldn’t remember if they had ever just walked hand in hand; she was sure she’d remember if they ever had. Now they never would, and all she had left to show for their wasted time were her regrets and her guilt.

 

It wasn't her fault that he was dead. It had been an accident. Accidents happened. She felt guilty for all the things left undiscovered between them. The things they'd never do or say. The gaudy nights they'd never share.

 

And then there were the things she had had with him and lost, his loyalty and friendship and their partnership. Had he known how much she had valued it, _him_? How important, how different he had been for her? How happy it had all made her, the playful banter and the nightcaps, the mystery solving, the games of draughts, the pleasure of his company. She had never said.

 

 _That_ was what she felt guilty for: he had died thinking he had been one more gentleman she'd occasionally flirted with, a dear friend, but just a friend nonetheless. He had never known, he would never know now, that she had fallen in love with him.

 

The heart she had tried to protect was broken, and he had never known he had had it. She had concealed it from him, hidden it away so it would stay whole and intact in her chest, but it had broken anyway. Oh, she could feel the shattered pieces, pointy and sharp, puncturing her insides. That meant the numbness was starting to wear off already. _Here comes unbearable pain_ , they were telling her. The thing she had tried to avoid the most. The pain that comes with caring and loving someone so much you couldn’t imagine the world without them in it. And he would never know how unimaginably painful a world without him in it was to her.

 

_How on Earth did I let this happen? How was it that you made me care so much? How is it that I’m only accepting it now? Damn you, Jack Robinson. Whatever have you done to me. Damn you and your ways. Damn me and mine._

 

They asked her to wait in the small office outside the morgue. She had made Dot stay outside. The girl didn’t need to see this, and Phryne could tell that she didn't want to. She wouldn't put her through that.

 

She’d been there countless of times, but she had never noticed how small it was, how dark and impersonal, how _lifeless_. Dreading the moment the coroner came back and told her she could go with him into the next room, Phryne sat down and folded her hands on her lap. They were shaking, as was the rest of her thin body. It could have been the anteroom of the gallows for the nerves and panic she felt knowing what awaited behind the closed door.

 

He was there. No, _his body_ was there, cold and bruised and laying on a table. The shell of the man Detective Inspector Jack Robinson had been. The sparkle in his eyes, the velvety quality of his voice, his wit and intellect, the natural charm, all of that was gone. And she would have to look at his body and confirm that yes, that was him. And then she'd have to sign some paperwork; she wondered how she'd manage to do that if her hands didn't stop shaking. There would be a burial and a wake, she would probably meet friends and colleagues and people that had been important to him while he had been alive and that she hadn't cared learning about.

 

And then what?

 

Then, nothing.

 

A name on a stone in a graveyard. A date to commemorate the anniversary of his passing once every three hundred and sixty five days. The memories of their friendship and partnership and the fear of losing them, the only thing of his she had left, like she had always been afraid of waking up one day and not remembering the exact color of Janey’s eyes or how her voice and laughter had sounded.

 

She would now have to live with the fear of forgetting the little things that had made him _her_ Jack, _her_ detective inspector. And the emptiness, the nothingness, all the questions that had been left without an answer because she had never asked. And now it was too late.

 

It made her sick with regret.

 

She may as well have been waiting to be walked to the gallows. She didn't want to think of herself as deserving of this excruciating pain, this unbearable feeling of hopelessness. She wasn't like that. She hadn't done anything wrong on purpose.  Her own heart had betrayed her, for it had made her believe he would always be there and that they'd have all the time in the world, and that even if they didn't (she had never thought that they wouldn't) she would be alright without him. That her heart would be alright without him (again: she had never thought he'd ever be anywhere else than _there_ ). But then the moment she had learned about his death, her heart had instantly broken.

 

When the coroner announced that they were ready for her (and oh how she wished Mac was there! How she wished she weren't about to go into shock in front of strangers!) Phryne stepped inside the morgue.

 

The coroner repeated the same things she had already been told over the phone, and then the policeman that was there with them and that had been assigned to the case explained that it looked like a simple car accident. A fatality, yes, a tragedy, but a simple car accident nonetheless. The other driver was dead, too, they said.

 

She didn't care. She wasn't listening. Her eyes were fixated on the body that lay on the table. It was covered with a long, white blanket, except for the bruised face that didn't resemble Jack's at all.

 

Because it wasn't his.

  
Because it wasn't him on the table.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I would like to thank, as always, the wonderful @MissingMissFisher for encouraging me and hearing my fears and doubts during the writing of this chapter. And I would like to thank you all for the beautiful comments you left on the first one.


	3. Chapter 3

_Oh, mi corazón se vuelve delator,_

_Traicionándome_

 

Corazón delator

Soda Stereo

  
  


She stared at her pale reflection in the old mirror that hung on the wall above the sink. She couldn’t remember the last time she had looked like this, shaken and disheveled and consumed by emotional distress. The fact that she was a mess was very much an understatement. She had vomited to the point of dry heaving, but it hadn’t made her feel better. She was still dizzy and nauseated, and an unpleasant sensation was going up and down her throat. Her limbs were tingling and her vision was blurred.

 

Yes, it was an understatement to say she was an utter mess.

 

But for once she didn’t care. She didn’t care her clothes and makeup were not immaculate, or that her eyes were still swollen from how much she had cried, or that there was a bruise on the back of her hand where she had bitten to repress her sobs- she hadn't wanted anyone to hear her crying.

 

She hadn't shed a tear when she had thought him to be dead. She hadn't vomited, she hadn't sunk her teeth on her skin so the sound of her pain wouldn't be known to others, heard by others. She had been numb, and sad, and heartbroken of course, but she hadn't been physically sick. She had held herself together pretty well for others to see. The unbearable grief, the guilt and the regrets had been hers and hers alone, she hadn't displayed any emotion other than the shock that would have naturally been expected under the circumstances- she had just learned a dear friend had gotten himself killed in a car accident. Every splinter and shattered piece of what had been a whole, beating heart before they had phoned her with the news of his death had been kept private and hidden on the inside. No one had known the extent to which she had been hurting.

 

Had Mac been there, she would have seen through it. Oh dear Mac, she had a sixth sense that allowed her to read Phryne's emotions and moods so easily! She could never fool her, no matter how hard she tried. What was even more frightening, Jack could have done so, too. He would have read her like an open book as easily as Mac. And whereas it was expected that her best friend of over ten years had that ability, she didn't know what it meant that a man she had known for less than that could see right through her and straight into her soul.

 

More than once she had wondered if it had anything to do with the fact that he made a living of deducing people; he was a highly trained detective inspector, Melbourne's finest.

 

There had been times, though, where she had almost believed that no amount of training could give you those abilities. You either had them or not. You could either read someone or you couldn't. Perhaps he could read anyone. Perhaps he could only read her. (She would never admit to it, it didn't matter how much Mac insisted, but she preferred this theory. It was odd how comforting it was, thinking that maybe he had the ability to read her and her only, and that he would have been able to do so even if his career of choice had been butcher or writer or mailman).

 

Yes, it wouldn't have taken more than a look for Mac and Jack to see right through her, to see her pain. But neither of them had been there to call her on it. Her best friend was away attending a medical congress, and Jack… Well, he had been the reason why she'd shattered. That call had been about him dying in a car accident. And she had broken because she had thought that he'd never read her like one of his beloved plays by Shakespeare again.

But then she had seen _it_. The body.

 

The body that wasn't his.

 

The body that had belonged to someone else.

 

He had been about his age, and he had been called John Robinson, too. He had been a detective inspector as well  (what were the odds, really?) He had worked at another police station and apparently he had been headed for City South to consult on a case the morning he had encountered death at the wheel. That was what they had explained to her after they had made some more phone calls and found out that Phryne was, in fact, right. For she had insisted the man that lay on the cold stab in the morgue wasn't Jack Robinson. It didn't matter how bruised and swollen his face was, she would have recognized it anywhere and under any circumstances, and it wasn't her Jack's face. She had got upset, of course, and they had asked her to wait outside with her companion while they made some inquiries. They had apologized profusely afterwards, said how it had never happened before that two people's lives were so full of coincidences from their name to their line of work that they mistook one for the other and notified the wrong next of kin. And then they had left, presumably to make a phone call to the beloved ones of the John Robinson that did lay dead on that table.

 

Dot had hugged her, and cried, and thanked the Lord and then cried and hugged her some more while she kept thanking the Lord. Phryne had quickly excused herself and locked herself in one of the bathrooms at the hospital, and that was where she was now, riding the aftermath of the second shock she had experienced in less than twenty four hours.

 

But this time she had sobbed, she had vomited, and she had sunk her teeth in the back of her hand so she wouldn't scream to the top of her lungs. How curious, it was, how very curious, that the news of his death had pushed her into silent pain and numbness whereas the news that he lived had torn down all of her walls until she had been standing vulnerable and exposed, in a very similar fashion to the one in which he had made the walls around her heart come crumbling down, her emotions so convulsed and revolted that they hadn't stayed put and she hadn't been able to keep them inside any longer.

 

She had fallen apart in the bathroom of a morgue because she had learned that the man she loved was actually alive. Maybe the sense of relief and disbelief that had washed over her had been too much and they had made her physically sick. Or perhaps she hadn't known how to be strong any longer and had to just let it all out once and for all. She had done so alone, and now that she was somehow calmed again she took a look in the mirror and saw that she was disheveled and pale and a complete mess. And she didn't care one bit.

 

She couldn't help but think that the John Robinson that _was_ dead had been loved by someone, that he had had a wife perhaps, or a significant other of sorts. They would be getting the same phone call she had got earlier that day, and their world would come crashing down like hers had earlier that day. But they wouldn't be granted a second chance. They wouldn't be granted the miracle of a mistake like she had. The grief, the mourning she had believed herself condemned to, they were now someone else's.

 

It had taken the death of a stranger, a bash of coincidences and a few human errors for her to realize that she was in love with him and that she would forever regret not saying or doing every little thing she hadn't said or done. These people, the ones that were probably being called to the hospital to identify the body as she shakily stood in the dimmed lit bathroom, would most certainly have their regrets about the things they hadn't said or done, whatever those may be. How rare and macabre this gift she (they) had been given. How many nights had she lost sleep wishing they had been mistaken about Janey? It was a common reaction to the loss of a loved one, she was sure. The dead John Robinson’s friends and family, they too would wish someone would tell them there had been a mistake. It wouldn't happen, though. But it had happened to her ( _to them_ ).

 

She splashed cold water on her face and tried to even out her ragged breathing. She didn't want Dot, or anyone for that matter, to see her in this state when she stepped out of the bathroom.

 

Her breathing pattern evened out after a couple of minutes, but her heart was still pounding so hard it hurt her ribs, and the turmoil in her mind was just the same as it had been before.

 

The man she was in love with was alive. She hadn't realized it until she had thought she had lost him forever, but she cared about him deeply in a way she wasn't sure she had ever cared about anyone else since the death of her little sister. The guilt, the regrets… She had the chance to make sure that if something were to _actually_ happen to him (God forbid that) none of the things left unsaid between them tormented her. She had the chance nothing went unsaid between them ever again.

 

She knew it would be stupid and unfair for them both to walk away from it.

 

She was scared and on the edge, there was no denying, and she had no idea what the future held or what it'd be like. There were a lot of things that she didn't know, but she did know that after the war had ended she had promised herself she would live her life with no regrets. And she made a point of keeping her promises, whether they were to others or to herself.

 

She took a last look at herself in the mirror before she stepped out of the bathroom. Her hair and makeup and face were still a mess, and her clothes were wrinkled, and the back of her hand hurt where she had sunk her teeth to mute her sobbing. She still didn't care.

 

As she was walking towards where Dot was waiting for her, Phryne Fisher's heart betrayed her once more by reacting to a quote (Shakespeare, she believed, and how appropriate and fitting to the situation was that) that popped up in her head.

 

_'Tis better to have loved and lost, than never to have loved at all._

 

Well, she hadn't lost yet.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> @MissingMissFisher, lovely friend that she is, proofread this chapter. I couldn't ask for a better fellow editor to work with.


	4. Chapter 4

_Un señuelo,_

_Hay algo oculto_

_En cada sensación_

 

Corazón delator

Soda Stereo

 

 

He had been sure of two things upon leaving Wardlow that night after they had shared a nightcap for the first time: she was the most intriguing, interesting woman he had ever met, and if for some reason a higher power or being decided to grant him a wish he would without a hint of a doubt ask for their paths to have crossed at a less complicated time of his life. (Not that he was sure he'd have any idea what to say or what to do. Not that he thought he would have stood a chance. But at least he would have known.)

 

That night seemed to have happened a lifetime ago, and yet only a year had passed. But for a man that had seen the horrors of a war unravel before his eyes and built a career as an officer of the law, he knew very well that the mysteries they had solved together, the criminals they had caught and the storms they had navigated on the seas of their personal lives in such a short period of time were things that some people didn't get to experience in forty, fifty years. He knew very well that in sixteen years of marriage he and his former wife hadn't experienced or felt half of what he and Phryne could say they had.

 

And for a man that had been to war and served as a police officer, he could say without a hint of a doubt that that very notion scared him to pieces.

 

He set aside on the coffee table the book he'd been reading that morning and walked over to the kitchenette to put on the kettle. It was his day off, and since it was raining and he couldn't do any work in the garden he was rereading a favorite author of his.

 

The hardcover copy lay open on the first page of Poe's short story _The Tell-Tale Heart_ , its very first sentence underlined with pencil by the man that was now making himself a cup of tea.

 

 

 

> It is impossible to say how first the idea entered my brain; but once conceived, it haunted me day and night.

 

It was impossible to say how first the idea had entered his brain, indeed, but it was true that once he had conceived it, the realization that he had allowed himself to fall in love with one Miss Phryne Fisher haunted Detective Inspector Jack Robinson's mind day and night. Maybe that was why he underlined it, because it had been written to tell the reader about the torment in the narrator's mind, but for all Jack knew it could have been written to tell him about the torment in his own.

 

The look they had shared that day at the game, when he had given her his scarf… it had been a look of love. That was what he had felt, and some nights while he lay awake examining his thoughts as he would do with evidence for a case, some nights he could swear he had seen something shining in her eyes as well. Something that he was sure she had seen shining in his.

 

He tried to convince himself that he had probably seen flirting, and lust, and a little bit of affection perhaps, but nothing more. He knew Phryne- _Miss Fisher_ cared about him in the same way that she cared about Miss Williams, and those two cabbies, and her aunt, and Jane Ross. She had a caring nature and a great capacity for love, he had seen that on that first night when she had told him she wanted to give that poor girl a home. It didn't surprise him that she cared about him as a friend and a partner (and he did think of her as an equal, a colleague). But he didn't think that set him apart. It didn't make him special.

 

She, on the other hand, had become _the world_ to him.

 

And that would lead to nothing good.

 

He had been over to her house the day after the game, had dropped by with a careful rehearsed excuse because he'd wanted to see her. See if what he'd thought he'd seen the day before was still there, warm and inviting and _real_. Mr. Butler had informed him she had left earlier for a short, last minute vacation at a friend's home in a nearby city, and that she hadn't left word of when she would be back.

 

And Jack had just known.

 

She had reacted in the way he’d always suspected she would if, possessed by some madness and robbed of his better judgement, he confessed some of the feelings he'd developed for her.

 

She had up and left the moment it had finally happened. She had seen the love in his eyes. The betrayal of his heart.

 

 

 

> "Villains!" I shrieked, "dissemble no more! I admit the deed! --tear up the planks! here, here! --It is the beating of his hideous heart!"

 

He finished the story in time with his tea.

 

She hadn't left _forever_ , no. It wasn't as if he had found the St. Kilda home empty, her belongings and the staff gone, not a single word on her whereabouts. But she hadn't mentioned a visit to any friends in a nearby city. Those plans had been unexpected to say the least, and he would have bet anything she had invited herself over to wherever she had gone more than been invited by her current hosts. He didn't remember her mentioning anything, and when he had casually commented Miss Fisher would have hated to miss on a particular gruesome case they had been called in for, Hugh had let it slip that Miss Williams had been surprised they had packed and gone to the seaside on such short notice. _But well, Sir, you know how Miss Fisher is, Sir._

 

Perhaps she had been running away from him. Temporarily, of course. But she had run away nonetheless. At the first sign of deep emotion on his part, she had distanced herself from him without so much as a goodbye. It felt as if she had been telling him _This far and no further_.

 

The occasional flirting was good. The playful banter was good. The looks, the touches, the nightcaps, the games of draughts, the confidences, all of that was good. He knew (and this caused his heart a pain that bordered on unbearable) that a shag every now and then would be welcomed and that ever since they had first met she’d shown no reserves on her intentions of bedding him if he desired so. He could be one of them, he knew. One of her lovers. Not the only one- there would never be just _the_ one, and if there were then it wouldn’t be him, he’d never be so delusional to think that. But just another one. She’d allow that if he wanted to. They could be friends, they could be partners, they could be lovers, but there couldn’t be love.

 

_This far and no further._

 

The pain did border on unbearable, really.

 

He wondered what to pick off the bookshelves now. He didn’t feel like reading another short story by Poe- the one he had just read had unsettled him enough. It was a wonderful classic, of course, dark and mysterious and passionate and thrilling and overall brilliantly written. But it had tugged at his heart, and at the moment he’d rather his heart be left alone. He didn’t want to be reminded he had one. A heart that bled, one that could beat, one that could betray him like it had that day when he had given her his scarf.

 

No. He didn’t want to be reminded he was the owner of a tell-tale heart.

 

He put the book of short stories away and picked another one. Forensics science. He put it back even before he got the chance to open it, for he realized that perhaps reading about dissected organs wouldn’t be a good idea if he felt like his very own organs had been torn apart.

 

(Yes, it did border on unbearable, the pain.)

 

He had just picked a different book when he heard the phone ring.

 

They were calling to inform him there had been a mistake- _No need to worry, Detective Inspector, it’s all been taken care of_.

 

A man that had also bore his birth name and job title had died in a car accident earlier that day, and apparently their files had been mislabeled some time ago. No one had noticed until they had had to contact his next of kin- the other man’s, that is- to notify them of his demise.

 

They had called _his_ instead. Because they had thought the man with the broken neck and the broken ribs and the heart that no longer beat, had been _him_.

 

He dropped the book, but the shock and the numbness he was feeling meant he didn’t catch the deafened sound it made when it hit the carpeted floor.

 

They had called Phryne.

 

Phryne, whom he had listed as his next of kin even though they weren’t related. He had had to change his personal information after the divorce. He didn’t have any relatives- only child, both parents dead. He had written in her name and her contact information without even thinking. She was the person he felt closest to. She was the one he trusted the most. He trusted her with his life. He didn’t care what anyone would think, really. A rebellious act, one could have called it.

 

They had called her and she had been home. She was back in St. Kilda, apparently. So they had got ahold of her. Of Detective Inspector Robinson’s next of kin.

 

They had told her he was dead, and she had gone up to the morgue to identify a body that wasn’t his, while he had been at home reading and drinking tea and pondering about what to do with that traitorous tell-tale heart of his.

 

The heart that at that moment he wished he didn’t have, for the pain it was feeling was unbearable.

  
Oh, so unbearable.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The lovely @MissingMissFisher proofread this chapter and made wonderful comments and suggestions. I am forever thankful to her.


	5. Chapter 5

_Ella parece sospechar,_

_Parece descubrir_

_E_ _n_ _mi debilidad_

_Los vestigios de una hoguera_

 

Corazón delator

Soda Stereo

 

He rushed to her home paying little attention to traffic lights or traffic laws at all. He took a leaf out of Miss Fisher's book and drove recklessly, making it in half the time it would have taken him had he not behaved like a mad man behind the wheel.

 

For a brief moment, as he passed a red light, he considered how ironic it would be if he did end up dying in a car accident on his way to tell her how very sorry he was they had called her with the fake news of his tragic death in a car accident. But, as he didn't have the patience nor the time to analyze the ironic properties of the situation, he shrugged the thought off.

 

He couldn't believe what had happened. The man that had died earlier that day had bore his name. He had had his same profession. He had had the same job title, for Heaven’s sake! A misplaced label, a sheet with personal information filed away in the wrong folder, and all Hell broke loose the moment something of this nature happened. This other John Robinson, for a good couple of hours had been identified as the Senior Detective Inspector at City South Police Station, so they had called the person he had listed as his emergency contact.

 

_Miss Phryne Fisher, Lady Detective._

 

He closed his eyes for a fraction of a second when he parked the motor vehicle in front of the beautiful house. He could almost hear her voice saying the name and profession when she’d answered the telephone. He didn’t want to think about what they had said, how they had delivered the news. It mortified him. And yet he couldn’t help but to imagine the whole sequence: Miss Williams’ eyes getting big as saucers and filling with tears, Mr. Butler expressing his deepest condolences, perhaps those two cabbies that always hung around offering a ride to the morgue. He could see it so clearly in his mind, he felt the pain tugging at his (still beating) heart.

 

The only element that he found was missing in the macabre show his imagination was putting on for him seemed to be Miss Fisher’s reactions. Her voice, her eyes, her face. The words she could have said. The way she could have felt. He didn’t feel good pondering about this. It didn’t feel right. He had driven all the way there, violated a dozen traffic rules, and yet the moment he parked the car he stayed quiet and silent, unmoving, trying to figure out why it was that he could imagine vividly how everyone in the household could have reacted to the news of his death, except for the woman the news had been intended for and actually delivered to.

 

No, it definitely wasn’t right that it upset him so much. He had a right to be upset this mistake had happened. But he didn’t have a right to be upset because he couldn’t guess how she had reacted to the news of his death. It hadn’t been indifference, he’d never think that. Miss Fisher was his friend and she cared about him in the same way that she cared about anyone else in her life. And _that_ was what upset him, wasn’t it? That the news had probably pained her, the surprise had surely knocked the air out of her lungs for a moment, perhaps even left her speechless (and when it came to Miss Fisher that was quite the reaction). She must have felt sorry, of course, and sad. He didn’t doubt about that.

 

What upset him greatly- and he hated to admit this, even if he was only admitting it to himself- was that her reaction wouldn’t have been different if it had been Miss Williams in that car, or Constable Collins, or one of the cabbies. She would have been surprised, and breathless, and perhaps even speechless, and she would have felt sorry and sad. Because to her, he meant the same as the rest of them did: he was her friend.

 

Nothing more.

 

And, he assumed that with time the wounds would have healed, and she would have moved on, and never for a second would she have felt unbearable pain. Never for a second would she have felt like the end of the world- of _her_ world- was impending and inevitable.

 

* * *

 

He found the Hispano-Suiza parked in front of his house.

 

Miss Fisher was sitting on the front steps.

 

The sight took his breath away.

 

He had been to her home. He had finally knocked on the door after a couple of minutes hiding inside his car and lost in his own thoughts, and after greeting him with a firm handshake and a comment about how relieved he was it had all been some misunderstanding, Mr. Butler had informed her Miss Fisher wasn’t home.

 

The man had rushed him inside and offered him a cup of tea- _Or something stronger, perhaps? That is if you’re off duty and up for it, Detective Inspector_. Jack had found himself agreeing to the former, even if reluctantly so, and simply because Miss Williams had spotted him from the kitchen, and had all but embraced him while she weeped her thanks to the Lord that he was… well, not dead, and taken him by the arm and inside the kitchen. The two cabbies had been there, as well, and the way they had nodded their heads to him as a greeting had been respectful, almost solemn.

 

It had been there that Jack understood that a couple of hours ago they had all thought him to be dead, laying on a cold stab in a morgue. His face bruised. His bones broken. His heart stopped between lungs that would never taste oxygen, ever again.

 

To them all, it was a miracle that it had all been a mistake, that was there, in the kitchen with them, accepting their offers of tea and fresh baked good. Keeping him from finding her, from finding out where she had gone.  

 

“We dropped them off, the Miss and Dot here,” one of the cabbies had explained, a half eaten biscuit in his hand. “Dot told us there had been a misunderstanding, another copper by your name. And then the Miss hopped on the Hispano-Suiza and left. Didn’t say where she was going. Didn’t say when she’d be back.”

 

Jack had left shortly after that.

 

He had an idea of where Miss Fisher could have gone.

 

When he saw her sitting there, he knew he had been right.

 

She had her knees up to her chest, her arms wrapped around them. He thought that she looked like a child. Her clothes were wrinkled, and there were no traces of makeup on her face. She was, as always, the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen, gorgeous and exquisite and consuming. (His tell-tale heart was always most willing to be consumed by her. Aching to be consumed by her. It was a blessing that he had some sense left in him so as to not oblige to its desires).

 

“Miss Fisher”

 

She looked up at him with those eyes that he adored. Oh, how unbearable it was to adore someone so much! He had never expected this to happen. He had never asked for it. He hadn’t been a victim of profound, maddening adoration with Rosie- he had cared about her, he had appreciated her, and of course he had fancied her (he had, after all, asked her to step out with him, and later he had proposed and she had accepted to become his wife). He wasn’t sure he had ever loved Rosie, certainly not like this. If this he felt every time he looked at Phryne Fisher was love, then he never loved Rosie for she never made him feel an ounce of this. If it wasn’t love, if it was something else, then what Phryne Fisher made him feel was stronger than love- more potent, more powerful... deadlier.

 

When he saw her sitting there, the realization that had been tormenting him as of late washed over him once more: he was doomed to adore her for as long as he lived. Maybe he’d adore her after his death, too. He couldn’t know. He couldn’t fight it. Perhaps he could elude it. He wasn’t sure.

 

“They told me you were dead.”

 

Her tone wasn’t accusatory. It wasn’t harsh, either.

 

It was just sad.

 

Her voice sounded as broken as he knew his own heart was.

 

“They called my house, they asked to speak to me. When I answered the telephone they told me you had died in a car accident.” He tried to swallow, but he had a lump in his throat. “I walked into that morgue thinking I’d see you on the slab.”

 

“You thought it was me in that car.”

 

He didn’t know why he said that. It was more a statement than anything else. He didn’t say he was sorry. He didn’t try to explain why he had listed her as his emergency contact, or apologise for doing so without consulting it with her first. The words left his mouth before he had time to think.

 

“ _They_ thought it was _you_ in that car, and so they notified the person listed as your emergency contact. _Me_.” She still didn’t sound angry. She was upset, yes, but she wasn’t crossed at him.

 

He sat down with her on the front steps. He felt like a young boy again, spending his Saturday afternoons sitting on the sidewalk talking with the fanciable girl next door.

 

But this was a lot more serious. She wasn't a nice girl he fancied and hoped to step out with sometime during the weekend. She was a woman he loved devotedly, blindly, desperately. A woman he couldn’t have because he would never be modern enough for her. And she’d never want to be only with him. He wouldn’t ask her to change- he respected her too much. And he knew he’d never be able to afford the luxury of having her for a while- shared with other men or not- and then lose her. He’d rather not have her at all. He had come to terms with that.

 

He’d never have her.

 

So it was useless to draw parallels between their relationship- interesting and deep and intense as it may be- with the first installments of a _potentially different_ relationship. He wasn’t sitting there by her side with the hope that he’d work up the courage to hold her hand in his or wrap an arm around her.

 

He was sitting down with her because in the space of a heartbeat he decided they needed to have a conversation, and he wasn’t sure he had in him what would take to remain standing afterwards.

 

It never occurred to him to invite her into his home. What if his heart betrayed him and he did something ridiculous, like confessing his love for her or asking her to never leave? He couldn’t risk it. He wanted this to be as quick and as painless as possible, and given the current state of things and the odds… Well, it wouldn’t be quick nor painless. But that didn’t mean he had to make matters worse by placing himself in a vulnerable position, opening the door of his home to her the same way he had opened the doors to his heart. (Besides, if she wanted to go inside she would say so. Perhaps she would even make a move without asking him. She had, after all, invited herself to permanently live in his heart and mind without asking first).

 

“I don’t know how to tell you how sorry I am that this happened.”

 

“It was a mistake, Jack.”

 

He kept on talking.

 

“I should have told you I gave them your contact information in case something happened to me on the job…”

 

She cut him off, her voice soft and soothing.

 

(And heartbreaking).

 

“You don’t have to explain. I would have appreciated a heads up, but it isn’t necessary now. Really, Jack,” she reassured him “you don’t have to explain.”

 

“I think I might have overstepped by doing so. You may take it as a misunderstanding of our friendship on my part…”

 

He didn’t want to stop talking. He didn’t know what he was saying, for the words were leaving his mouth before his brain had much time to process them. But he didn’t want to sit there in silence with her, for he feared his resolution would dissolve before he had the chance to say what he knew he had to say.

 

“I am sorry you had to go through this. That you had to drive up to the morgue and waste your morning…”

 

He knew he had said the wrong thing the moment she spoke to cut him off.

 

She was mad now.

 

He had upset her.

 

“You think you have to apologize because I wasted my morning in the morgue to identify a body that, as it turned out, was someone else’s?” It was a rhetorical question, of course. “You think the worst part for me was spending my morning at the hospital when I could have, I don’t know, had a lie in or gone to visit my aunt?”

 

“I didn’t mean it like that…”

 

She didn’t let him finish.

 

“Jack, they told me you were _dead_ . Have they ever phoned you to tell you someone you care about was _dead_? Have you ever been on the receiving end of one of those dreadful telephone calls, or are you always the one who makes them, Inspector?”

 

“No, I've never been on the receiving end,” he admitted “But…”

 

She didn't let him finish.

 

“Don't tell me you can imagine what it feels like, then.” She looked exhausted all of a sudden. “There was a window of time in my life in which I thought that someone important to me was gone. _You_ were gone, Jack. For a couple of hours I lived in a world that would have me in it but not you.”

 

“It would have kept on turning, Miss Fisher.” He was voicing for the first time this thought: had he been gone, the world- _her_ world- would have kept on turning. She would have gone on.

 

“Do you really think that little of yourself, Inspector?”

 

He shrugged off his shoulders in defeat.

 

“It's the way it is, Miss Fisher.”

 

“Would you have thought that if it had been me in that car and they had called you?” Her tone was getting sharper now, as were her eyes. “Would you have thought, ‘ _Oh the world will go on without her, it is what it is’_?”

 

“What do you want my answer to be, Phryne?” He was confused. And tired. And his heart was threatening to get the best of him.

 

He suspected why she was there and what she wanted, and it wasn't something he could give her, ever. He was all or nothing when it came to her. She was there to offer and take comfort in equal parts, he supposed. A fix after what had happened. Physical reassurance that he was still there, as if seeing him in the flesh wasn't enough and she needed to _feel_ his flesh. For that day maybe. Or the a whole week. Perhaps for a whole month. But it soon would be over once the shock wore off. She'd never give him all. (He wouldn't ask, either).

 

So, if it wasn't all, then he'd set for nothing.

 

“Why did you come here, Miss Fisher?” He asked when his first question was met with silence.

 

“I don't know, Jack.”

 

She stood up in what he was sure was defeat.

 

He stood up as well.

 

“I suppose I wanted to see for myself that you were fine.”

 

She was lying. He knew that she was.

 

“I wouldn't have thought the world would go on just fine without in it.” He blurted the words out before she made a move to leave. “I never wanted to imply that I would. I just said that I think it would go on just fine without _me_ in it.”

 

 _Without_ me _in_ yours.

 

“I'm sorry you feel this way, Inspector.” She looked more like herself now, and not the small girl she had resembled when he had first arrived to find her sitting in the front steps hugging her knees. “There is nothing I can do to change your opinion on what the rest of the world would feel if you were gone. _I_ have existed in a world where you didn't, even if for a few hours. Even if hypothetically. It was real to me at the time, and it still felt very much real until I saw you walking up to your house a few minutes ago.” She took a deep breath and then went on as he simply looked at her. “Let me tell you something: it was _unbearable_.”

 

His heart, that tell-tale bastard, skipped a beat when he heard her use that word.

 

“Believe whatever you want, Jack, really. I don't think I am obligated to prove it to you in anyway. That you matter to me, that is. That I care about you and that my world wouldn't have simply gone on without you. I can't, I won't, give up myself in order to prove that to you.”

 

If he hadn't been suffering from heartache perhaps he would have had the energy to marvel at how well she had read him and understood what it was that bothered him so much.

 

She really was a remarkable, extraordinary woman. There was no hiding from her, and it was impossible to keep things hidden from her. And when it came to her he did wear his heart on his sleeve to a flaw.

 

“I would never ask that from you.”

 

And so he said what it was that he believed needed to be said:

 

“So I have decided I am giving you up instead.”

 

If this surprised her, she didn't let it show.

 

“You do that and it may as well have been you in that wreckage this morning, Jack.”

 

“I find it as unbearable an option,” he confessed “but if I don't do this now then things will only get worse.”

 

“For whom exactly?” Was she being defiant?

 

“For both of us.”

 

She chuckled.

 

“If that's how you feel, Inspector.”

 

She began to walk away.

 

And he let her.

 

She didn't turn around, didn't look back.

 

He watched her get into the car, start the engine and drive off in her usual, reckless manner.

 

He could have sworn he heard something the moment the car was so far away it was finally out of his sight.

 

He knew that sound very well.

 

It was the breaking of his tell-tale heart.

 

She had been right: he may as well have been in that damned wreckage.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you ever decide to write a story and you feel insecure about what you've written, then you need @MissingMissFisher on your side. When she proofread this chapter, she convinced me it was good and I did not delete it like I had planned to before I sent it to her. She is a true friend and a marvellous editor.


	6. Chapter 6

_Oh, mi corazón se vuelve delator,_

_La fiebre volverá de nuevo_

 

Corazón delator

Soda Stereo

  
  
  


She had last seen Detective Inspector Jack Robinson ten days ago. (She wasn’t counting, really- she just had a good memory for details, dates being one of the things she easily remembered. But no, the Honourable Phryne Fisher was definitely not counting how many days had passed since she had seen him last.)

 

She hadn’t cried when she had returned home after her short visit to the front door of his house (seeing he hadn’t invited her inside). She didn’t cry for men. She didn’t pine after them, she didn’t beg them, she didn’t wait for them. She hadn’t answered to Dot’s questions about how the inspector was- she had just told the dear girl she’d rather not talk about it. And her maid, being the clever and sensitive young woman that she was, had dropped the subject at once (oh, God bless her!)

 

She still couldn’t believe she had been about to tell him that she had developed strong feelings for him and that perhaps they could try to use the foundations of their friendship to build a different relationship. Oh, how close she had come to spill it all out and tell him she didn’t want to waste more time! How stupid of her it had been, really, to think that living her life freely, unattached to anyone and whatever damn way she pleased meant wasting time.

 

No. She did not waste her time, she had never done such a thing. Hers was time well spent, and maybe several years in the future other women- like dear Dot, for example- and men would understand that she had been right all along in choosing to live it up to the hilt, not a minute wasted.

 

To think she had believed a single man’s affection and devotion could have been worth making compromises! She didn’t need _his_ affection or _his_ devotion. She loved herself and she was devoted to being happy. That was enough. That would always do. Detective Inspector Jack Robinson be damned! She didn’t need him. She had herself, and her handpicked family: Mac, and Cec, and Bert, and Jane, and darling Dot, and Mr. Butler, and her aunt and cousins Arthur and Guy. As long as she had them, and as long as she remained true to herself, she wouldn’t need anything else.

 

He had given up on her- on _them_!- because he was scared. Of what exactly she had a million theories and little patience to analyze and/or explore them. Sod him, the coward! It wasn't rejection that she couldn't take- no, she took rejection just fine. She wasn't the centre of the bloody universe! She knew better than that. When you grow up with a violent, drunken father and a mother that loved him enough to be blinded and unable to admit she needs to leave the man because that house is not a safe, healthy environment for her children, well, let's say you learn very early on that you are far from being the centre of the universe- you are, after all, not even the centre of your own mother's. It was cowardice that she had a problem with.

 

She had read it in his eyes! The fear, the self preservation instincts starting to kick in the moment he had seen her. He had read it in her eyes, the reason why she had gone there, why she had spent half an hour sitting on the front steps of his house, waiting for him. They had become too good at reading the other, and it had played to her disadvantage.

 

She was sure he had misunderstood it all, but after the way he had acted she hadn't bothered correcting him. What for? He had chosen to believe she had been there to see he was alright and probably try to convince him to prove it. Well, perhaps that bit had been true. But he had been wrong in assuming she wanted to bed him once or twice or perhaps for the next couple of months until she got bored. He had been wrong in assuming she would have offered _him_ of all people under the bloody sun to be one more man in her string of lovers. Because he had just assumed that, had he not? Oh, the clever inspector, so sure he had her number figured out. So sure you couldn't expect more from the Honourable Phryne Fisher, modern minded socialite, than a shag every now and then in between distractions. How wrong had he been! And he would never know just how much because they would ever speak again. Because according to **him** they were over.

 

Her life went on. _She_ went on, the natural force of nature that she had always been. She had solved a particular interesting case the week before, and the thrill she had gotten out of finding the clues and making them fit like the pieces of a blood stained puzzle, the high, none of that had been lessened by his absence.

 

The lack of a relationship with Jack Robinson didn't make her incomplete. She was the same person, the same brilliant woman that solved mysteries and carried a gun in her purse and had a dagger conveniently hidden in her stockings. She had just thought that it'd be nice to share it all- her life, herself, her everything- with him. She had implicitly trusted that he would never ask for her to change a single thing, that he would always respect her and want her to be happy and, well, herself. That was what she had realized she wanted when she'd thought him to be dead: to share her life with him, the man that was the exception to the rule. The man she wouldn't mind coming home to every night (or every morning if she chose to spend the night out dancing or chasing a suspect). The man she could see herself becoming emotionally involved with. (She was already emotionally involved but that was a truth she wasn't admitting to herself again any time in the foreseeable future. Once had been enough, and look at where it had taken her! Exactly-  _nowhere_ ).

 

He had failed to see that. He had misunderstood everything, _her_.

 

Or perhaps she had misunderstood him.

 

They had misunderstood each other. After all, it wasn't unheard of people believing they have mastered the art of interpreting an author's work only to be proven wrong. Misinterpretation was not something rare. Maybe the inspector had wrongly believed he had mastered the reading of her. Maybe she had been wrong in believing she had become an expert in the reading of him.

 

She parked the Hispano-Suiza outside the house when she reached her destination. She had decided to take the day off, meet up with the ladies of the Adventuress Club. She was excited for the Ladies Team and the rally that would take place the following Saturday. The Club was sponsoring it, of course. As Madame President, Phryne believed like-minded women should support each other and their interests.

 

She wasn't working on a case at the moment, but that didn't mean she'd sit at home waiting for adventure to find her. Usually, she set to find her own adventures. If it wasn't a murder to solve, then a meeting with the members of the club was the best next thing she could think about to get her mind off… a certain someone, and certain things.

 

When she stepped out of the car, she didn't imagine adventure would find _her_ in the shape of a fresh murder before she made it back home.

 

She didn't imagine that it wouldn't be as easy getting her mind off that certain someone, either.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always, I had @MissingMissFisher proofread this chapter. I couldn't ask for a better editor!


	7. Chapter 7

_ Por descuido  _

_ Fui víctima de todo _

_ Alguna vez _

 

Corazón delator

Soda Stereo

 

 

“Sir, I hope I’ve done the right thing calling you in.”

 

Detective Inspector Jack Robinson had been making himself a cup of tea when Constable Hugh Collins had telephoned to inform him of a motor vehicle accident that had taken place the night before. 

 

For the second time in less than two weeks, the news he received made him drop what he'd been holding in his hand. The cup and the saucer had shattered to pieces on the floor, hot tea spilling all over it. 

 

He had heard words that sounded like “car”, and “accident”, and “Miss Fisher”, and after that he had heard nothing more, not even the breaking of the china or that of his own tell-tale heart, as he had taken to calling it, after his last conversation with her.

 

His very last conversation with her.

 

He had done everything mechanically after he hung up the phone. He cleaned up the mess- the tea stained floor, the broken china. He made sure everything was spotless, as if nothing had happened. Then he had driven to the scene, his every move a wooden one. His limbs had gone numb, and the only feeling he had left somewhere in his shocked body was a pain in his chest, where a whole beating heart had sat moments before. 

 

How ironic could a higher being, in case any existed, be? They had grown distant (a choice that hurt, but that was, in his opinion, a necessity) in the aftermath of a misunderstanding about his death in a car accident. And now, he had actually lost  _ her _ to that terrible fate, flashes of a blood stained wheel, and the once immaculate face of a porcelain doll smashed against it already filling up his tormented mind.

 

Numbness was, of course, due to give way to tormenting thoughts. It was always like that: the shock didn’t  let you feel anyhing at first, but then unbearable pain and made up scenarios started eating you alive from the inside when you least expected it.

 

He was there now, and the horrid images that were filling his head would soon be replaced with the truth. He'd stop imagining against his will what she'd look like in death because he'd actually see her soon. He knew he needed to, otherwise he'd spend the rest of his life tortured by whatever his pain-ridden brain conjured up. He had learned through experience that the truth was always preferable to guessing, imagining, not knowing. As a former soldier, he'd seen his fair share of widows, orphans and grieving mothers vivisected by not knowing what had exactly happened to their loved ones in their final moments. Sometimes war victims- direct and indirect- weren't offered the chance to know, and they were left to their own devices. Imagination could do much more damage than reality. He didn't want to hear other people retelling the facts. He didn't want to let his mind wander off to dark places. He had to see for himself. He had to face the truth. He had run away from her once, and now it was clear it had been a mistake. He wouldn't run away from this, he wouldn't be a coward again.

 

“I know motor vehicle accidents aren’t your department, but…”

 

Constable Collins was talking to him, but Jack couldn't make out what much of what he was saying, just like he'd had trouble understanding everything else he had said on the phone earlier. 

 

He didn't care about the details just yet. There would be time for that, later.

 

Time, the thing they did not have anymore. What an idiot, what a coward he had been ten days ago. If this was the universe's way to punish him, to show him how wrong he'd been, it was the sort of twisted, macabre justice often found in literature. (It had never occurred to him before that it was true what they said, that life imitates art. It had never occurred to him, either, that this horrible twist of fate could happen to him. To them.)

 

He tried to speak but he found that his throat was closed and his mouth was dry. Whatever words he managed to get out would be the first he'd say in a word without Miss Fisher. 

 

“I just want to see her.” 

 

“She’s still in the vehicle, Sir.”

 

His hands were trembling, so was the rest of his body. He had been shaking all over ever since he'd dropped that cup of tea when he heard. He felt an invisible weight on his chest, an unbearable pain that hurt more than anything else he could have ever imagined. Not even the horrors of the war compared to the devastation he was feeling, anticipating what he'd see in a second. 

 

The time spent together flashed before his eyes. He saw it all in rapid motion: the first time they'd met, the first nightcap they'd shared, the first time he'd heard her laughter. It still echoed inside him, her laughter, and he wondered if it'd be so for as long as he remained alive. He didn't know what he truly wanted, for neither the option of being forever haunted by the memory of her laughter nor the option of forgetting that sound altogether appealed to him.

 

He wanted her. Just her. Breathing and well and alive and beautifully intoxicating, and willing to hear him say how sorry he was, how terrible the mistake he had made when he'd given up on them. How he wished he'd never walked out on them. How he wished he'd been braver for her. How he wished he'd been less of a coward, too scared, too scarred. He had given her up because he'd rather have nothing at all if he couldn't have her all.

 

Whereas, now he didn’t have anyhing. He had nothing. 

 

It fucking went to show.

 

How the tables had turned. The last time he'd seen her she had asked him if he'd ever been on the receiving end of a call with news of the demise of someone he cared about. She had told him he couldn't understand, then.

 

Oh, yes, how the tables had turned! He did understand now. The unbearable pain and the desperation, the guilt and the regrets, the invisible hand that closes around your throat and squeezes you until you can't properly breathe anymore. He also knew he'd get no relief. Constable Collins had seen the body before he called him in. He knew Miss Fisher. He had recognized her. It was her. There wasn't any room for misunderstandings. The woman behind the wheel, the one he was about to see, was her.

 

The love of his life, prematurely taken from his arms before he even got the chance to hold her.

 

It was one thing to give her up because he was too scared, too scarred. It was a different thing entirely to know he was doomed to exist in a world she no longer inhabited. A world she had left thinking him a coward. 

 

He never had her. He'd never have her. He had failed her, had given her up, he'd probably disappointed her. And now he'd always miss her, and he'd have to live with the knowledge of how his stupid mistakes had robbed him of having nightcaps with her and playing draughts at her parlour during the last days of her life, listening to her laughter and bathing in the warmth of her eyes. All because he had been a coward.

 

It fucking went to show.

 

The air was knocked out of his lungs when he saw the dead woman with her head smashed against the wheel.

 

It couldn't be.

 

What were the odds? Constable Collins had seen her. He had called him in even though it wasn't his department. He had heard them very clearly, the words “car” and “accident” and “Miss Fisher”.

 

It couldn't be. How could this be happening again? What kind of sick joke was it? They had called him to inform him of her death, and now that he was there at the scene they were showing a body that was someone else's. It was exactly what had happened to her when they had confused the folders, and she had been called to identify the other Jack Robinson. How could it have happened again? Constable Collins had seen the body, he had called him…

 

But it wasn't Miss Fisher. This was someone else. He allowed himself a moment to be insensible enough, and he admitted to himself that he didn't care who she was as long as it wasn't the woman he loved.

 

Relief washed over him, and he felt like throwing up

 

It wasn't Miss Fisher.

 

He didn't know what exactly had happened, but it had been a misunderstanding. One that practically mirrored the one that had driven them apart. A misunderstanding that had helped him see what an idiot he'd been.

 

It wasn't Miss Fisher.

 

And now he had a second chance. 

 

His tell-tale heart had a second chance. 

 

Taking it and making it count would probably be one of the hardest things he'd ever have to do in his life, but he would do it anyway. He'd make it work somehow. 

 

He had to.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another chapter that the @MissingMissFisher proofread. She's a dear and I don't know what I'd do without her.
> 
> I don't know what I'd do without you all, either.
> 
> Thanks for reading, the end is near!


	8. Chapter 8

_Un suave látigo,_

_Una premonición,_

_Evocan llagas en las manos,_

_Un dulce pálpito,_

_La clave íntima,_

_Se va cayendo de mis labios,_

_Como un mantra_

_De mis labios,_

_De mis labios_

 

Corazón delator

Soda Stereo

  
  


Miss Gerty Haynes had found death at the wheel, and the following morning Detective Inspector Jack Robinson and the lady detective Miss Phryne Fisher found themselves face to face ten days after they parted ways ( _his_ idea, not _hers_ ).

 

He did his best to hide the shock of seeing _her_ there and not inside the wrecked car. He had thought she had recklessly driven herself to an early grave. He had gone there expecting to find a corpse. He had believed he now lived in a world where the Honourable Phryne Fisher wasn't more than another number in the statistics of death by car accidents.

 

It wasn't her body, and she was there. Beautiful and exquisite, and alive, and breathing. Reckless, and infuriating, and outrageous to him as ever.

 

“Ah, Miss Fisher arrived when I was awaiting the Coroner, sir. She knew the deceased and requested your attendance,” Constable Collins had explained.

 

If he hadn’t still been shocked, trembling knees and shaky hands, perhaps Jack would have allowed himself a moment to ponder whether she had insisted they called him because she suspected foul play in the death of her acquaintance and wanted him to investigate, or if this was just an excuse to see him again after almost two weeks of silence from both parties involved.

 

She would have it passed as the former, of course. She had a number of reasons to believe Miss Haynes had been murdered, and she didn’t have a problem pointing out every single one of them. And as it happened, he had something to say about everything she singled out.

 

“Why aren’t you willing to entertain the idea of foul play?” she finally asked him, tired and stressed and probably a little bit impatient.

 

_Why don’t you admit this was an excuse to see me, Phryne?_ he thought to himself. But of course he’d never say that out loud. Never.

 

“Why ask my opinion if you’re not willing to listen to it?”

 

He was fighting fire with firewood, he knew that. But he was still emotionally shaken but those horrible minutes (had they been just minutes? Had it been less than an hour? It had felt like decades. It had felt like an eternity) he had spent thinking the world would have to go on without her in it. He still didn’t know what to do, or what to say- he just knew he needed to get closer to her, but all he seemed to be doing was pushing her away, pulling at her strings, trying to pick up a fight with her.

 

Even when he knew it was time to man up and fix the mess they’d gotten themselves into, he was still acting like a coward in regards to her and the feelings he had. Damn his heart, always so cocky when it came to telltale on him, but so damn stubborn for everything else!

 

“Because that usually doesn’t bother you.”

 

She knew how to fight fire with firewood, too.

 

He wanted to ask her why she had asked Constable Collins to call him. If she suspected someone had murdered this woman, she was more than capable to investigate and solve the crime by herself. She was charming enough to get whatever door she needed to open for her, and whatever questions she had answered. She didn’t really need him. He suspected she never really had, and that she had chosen to team up with him every time their paths crossed (and they kept crossing often) because she had more fun with him, because she liked to toy with him and his emotions and his poor tell-tale heart. Because she wanted to bed him, eventually. She hadn’t ever needed him to solve cases. They simply worked well together, and it was interesting to discuss theories over nightcaps, and it was more thrilling to have the other for back-up. But he knew she had called him because she had wanted him there not to help decide if Miss Haynes had actually been murdered, but because she wanted an excuse to see him.

 

He wished he could call her out on it. He wished she could be honest and just tell him she needed an excuse, and that she had deemed that one as good as any. He wished she could admit she missed him, that she wanted him, that she didn’t want him to give up on them. But he also knew she wasn’t like that, and she’d never change. She’d never pine after anyone, she’d never beg, she’d never wait for someone. That was how she was. That was the woman he adored beyond reason.

 

And yet she had asked Constable Collins to call him as if nothing had happened ten days ago, as if he hadn’t decided to walk out on them. As if she hadn’t seen in his eyes the vulnerability and the love in his heart. As if he hadn’t seen the disappointment in hers because he hadn’t been modern enough to stick around with her and let her have him on her terms.

 

He decided to take the case and investigate what had happened to Miss Haynes. If anything, it was a first step toward working together with Miss Fisher again after their fall-out. He had this chance to make things work between them, to fix this. He wouldn’t let it slip away. He didn’t exactly know how to approach it, what to say, how to say, but he didn’t have to stop the angst from getting the best of him, make peace with Miss Fisher and solve the riddle his tale-tell heart had gotten him into.

 

He hoped it’d turn out to be less complicated than it sounded.

 

He knew he was hoping against hope.

 

* * *

 

“Claude Haynes stole a vital car part from his sister in order to sabotage her chances in Saturday's rally”.

 

She hadn’t planned to say that the moment she stepped into his office, but the words just blurted out of her mouth before she had time to think anything else entirely.

 

They had been working together on the Gerty’s murder. To anyone it would have seemed they were getting along just fine as if nothing had happened, as if the conversation in front of his house and the ten days that had followed had been nonexistent. They shared theories, they interrogated suspects, same as before. But to the trained eye, the angst was there. It was visible, it was so easy to sense there were moments she could have sworn it was palpable. Things weren’t back to normal just yet.

 

She didn’t know if they ever would be.

 

When she had learned about Gerty’s death, and the moment she had seen the scene, she had known her friend couldn’t have met her end because she had driven recklessly. Gerty was the only person Phryne trusted behind the wheel as much as she trusted herself, perhaps even more. Upon arriving at the scene, she had sensed that it hadn’t been an accident.

 

She had also decided that she’d need Detective Inspector Jack Robinson there, for if it hadn’t been an accident then it had to be a murder. Someone had wanted her out of the way, and they had seen to it. If she hadn’t been there, perhaps the police would have been fooled into thinking the car had crashed because she had been driving too fast or too negligently. She knew it was nonsense.

 

Her asking for them to call him in had had nothing to do with her wanting to see him, of course. She knew that. She wasn’t lying to herself. Just like she had admitted other things to herself regarding her feelings for him, she could have admitted to using this as an excuse to see him, as well. She was a grown up woman, she didn’t need excuses to do whatever she wanted to do. He was the best person for the case, and she needed someone willing to listen to her, someone willing to investigate what had happened the night Gerty had left the club and made it to her grave instead of home.

 

Working with him, doing what they did best, it made her want for things to get back to what they once had been. If he could only offer her his friendship, then she’d be happy with that. If he needed space from time to time, she’d be happy to give him that. She wanted more from him, that was true, and the misunderstanding about the car accident almost two weeks ago had opened her eyes and made her see just how much she cared about him and how he was different from anything she had ever wanted, and at the same time she couldn’t see herself wanting someone as much as she did him.

 

She had gone to his home to tell him that, but he had pushed her away and called off their partnership. It had hurt, and she had been angry at him. She would have probably gone on without talking him or wanting to hear from him for a long time if Gerty’s death hadn’t looked that suspicious. And now that they were joining forces again to solve a mystery, she was beginning to see even more clearly that while she could do perfectly well without him in her life if he chose to walk away from it, it wasn’t what she’d choose were she given a choice.

 

She hoped she could change his mind and made it see that things could get better, that they could fix this mess. That not all misunderstandings were bad.

 

The problem was she didn’t know how to do it because she didn’t want him to push her away even further. It wasn’t that she couldn’t take rejection- she’d always respect whatever he decided. She wanted to say the right thing, and do the right thing, and apparently her brain had decided that the right thing to say and do was bringing up Claude Haynes and the stolen car part the moment she walked into his office.

 

“Good evening to you too, Miss Fisher.”

 

He didn’t want to be short with her. He said the words without thinking, they were out of his mouth because he had time to properly process them. She had entered into his office behaving like the force of nature she was, and as it was customary for when she did this, the air had been knocked out of his lungs. She had that effect on him.

 

They discussed some details that were case related. He was starting to believe more and more that Gerty Haynes had actually been murdered, and he could tell Miss Fisher was enjoying every minute of it. It was _almost_ as if nothing had happened, as if that phone call notifying her of a dead body in the morgue with his name waiting for her to identify it had never taken place. But it had. And the misunderstanding with Constable Collins’ call had also happened. They had been real, those misunderstandings. They had marked them, they had scarred them. They couldn’t go on pretending they hadn’t. And yet there they were.

 

“So, I didn't jump the gun after all.” She had a smile plastered on her beautiful face, the one she often had when she teased him.

 

_Almost as if nothing hadn’t happened._

 

“Can we be friends again?”

 

Once more, the words were coming out of her mouth before she had time to decide if they were the right thing to say or not. For the first time since they had started working together in the solving of Gerty’s murder, she was directly addressing things were not as they had always been between them.

 

She hoped he understood it as a peace offering. _I miss your friendship. I want your friendship. I want us to be friends again. Let us be friends again._ It wasn’t like she was begging or dragging herself on the floor asking for a reconciliation. She was just being honest. She still wanted to be his friend, it was up to him to decide whether he wanted to or not. If anything else ever happened between them, that was yet to be seen. If nothing more than friendship ever happened between them, well, she could live with that. She could live without his friendship as well, but she didn’t wish to. She’d rather have him in her life. She didn’t like growing accustomed to things, never had… Well, he was the exception to that one rule as well, it seemed, for she have grown accustomed to him.

 

She quickly added a joke with the intention of making things a little bit lighter:

 

“In spite of my cavalier approach to driving?”

 

(Or perhaps she was just still walking around broken glass, trying not to step on it, and she was consciously choosing to avoid what had gone on the week before).

 

She never expected to see the sudden change in expression on Jack’s face. It was a lighthearted joke, after all  (well, maybe it wasn’t that lighthearted under the circumstances of Gerty Haynes’ death- the woman had died in a motor car accident, after all, so it was a little bit morbid a joke to be making, but she knew very well Jack enjoyed and shared her sense of humor, even when it got morbid.)

 

Jack got somber all of a sudden, and his rich, velvety voice was almost raspy with seriousness when he spoke to her:

 

“It's true. You drive too fast.”

 

“Too fast for what? A milk cart?”

 

Another joke, a little bit of sarcasm. Jack enjoyed a good dose of sarcasm, she knew that. He was sarcastic, even ironic, on occasion, as was she. So why wasn’t he laughing? Why did he look even more serious, almost upset that she seemed to be taking his opinion of her driving skills as something worth laughing over?

 

“And you're needlessly reckless.”

 

“That is an opinion, not fact.”

 

Phryne was about to fire a spicy comment at him (maybe something about how driving wasn’t the only thing she enjoyed doing recklessly) when she noticed the empty whisky bottle sitting on the floor by the foot of Jack’s desk. It wasn’t like him to drink alone, or on the job. He usually dropped by at her house when they were working a case, and he definitely did pay her a visit to celebrate with a nightcap and a game of draughts once it was solved. She had missed that, and she wondered if, had she not dropped by the police station, he would have spent the rest of his evening hidden in his office, drinking alone. That bottle was empty, but did he have others? Did he have more alcohol at his house and was he planning on finishing those bottles as well once he got home?

 

This thought saddened her, she realized. It wasn’t supposed to be like this. _They_ weren’t supposed to be like this. If there had been a time he had wasted away by himself (she was sure it most definitely had been- she suspected around the years of his marriage prior to the divorce, and she was positive he had used alcohol as a coping mechanism after the war ended, as had she) Phryne would have thought it forgotten by now. His divorce was finished, his wife had moved on, and he seemed alright with that. He had _her_. He could always go to her to take his mind off things, they could always share a glass of scotch or a bottle of fine champagne. The doors of her home were always open to her, and it pained her that things had gotten to the point of them being estranged, of him having to gulp down a bottle of whisky all by himself in the dimly lit solitude of his office. Phryne found herself wishing they weren’t so broken, and wondering if it’d be too long until things went back to what they had once been.

 

“I would suggest you could apologise to me by offering me a drink,” Apologise for what? Walking out on them? Giving her up? Criticising her driving? “but... given your lack of supplies and your new penchant for drinking alone, I'll settle for sitting in on your interview with Claude.”

 

The somber expression on his face didn’t change.

 

She just didn’t get it, did she? She had been called to identify his body (or so she had believed at the time) after a car accident, and she still didn’t get why he worried so much every time she put herself in front of a wheel and started the engine. They had been through so much together, seen so much of each other, gotten so under the other’s skin, and yet she just didn’t get it.

 

He found himself wishing the alcohol would numb him, make him immune to her. But no amount of alcohol seemed to be enough, for he had drunk a lot that night and it still hurt to think of the events of that morning, and the events of the previous week. It still pained him that he didn’t know how to fix things, how to make things better. And it pained him that she fired joke after joke (he loved her sense of humor on any given day, he really did, but not today, not like this).

 

“As it happens, my shift finished an hour ago. Goodnight, Miss Fisher.”

 

The moment the door closed and he was left alone, Detective Inspector Jack Robinson found himself wishing they weren’t so broken, and wondering what it would take and what it would be like to mend the pieces back together.

 

* * *

 

“I won, again.”

 

He had shown up at Wardlow for a nightcap, and she’d never seemed happier to see him. He realized that if he wanted to make things better he had to make a move. She had gone to see him at the station, and he wasn’t sure that exchange had been a good one. Before going to her home, Jack had wondered if she’d understand this as a peace offering, a truce of sorts.

 

Phryne had welcomed him with open arms and a smile, as if he had been around the night before. As if he had never stopped dropping by every other night. She had told him he could apologize by offering her a drink, and she hadn’t failed to make a comment on his finishing a whisky bottle alone. Well, he wasn’t offering her a drink exactly (the whisky was hers, after all) but he was offering her the pleasure of his company, and perhaps she was right in reading this as a truce of sorts.

 

She had asked him if he wanted to play a game of draughts, and he had agreed on it. They were both very good at it, and he enjoyed playing with her because she was a smart, fun rival. A discussion about the ongoing case took place during the game, of course. But he was off both things. He couldn’t shake the memory of the nightmares he had had the night before, and he briefly pondered the question of whether Phryne had had nightmares as well after it happened, after she mistakenly believed him dead...

 

“You're usually much better at this game.” She called him on it. “You come here, you drink my whisky, you accept my help and you won't even do me the courtesy of trying to beat me.”

 

“You're right. You're right, I'm off my game.” He admitted.  “When I heard about the motor car accident…”

 

What was he doing? The words, those damn words were leaving his mouth without his brain’s permission. They were coming straight from his heart and out of his mouth without a single thought being spared on them first! He should have known better to show up at her home when he was in such a vulnerable state! Now he had to deal with whatever madness his tell-tale heart had decided to make him a victim of.

 

“Hugh sent you a message.” Phryne encouraged him to keep talking when she noticed he was trailing off.

 

That was it. He felt them coming, going up his throat, ready to be spoken. The words he knew he wouldn’t be able to take back once they were out. The words he knew could potentially change everything.

 

But he had promised himself he would try to make things better, right? And being honest had to be key. He deserved honesty. He had been a coward once, had run away from her once. He had to face this, face _her_. He had to stop processing everything through his brain and just listen to what his heart thought was best for once in his life.

 

“.. .all I heard was 'Miss Fisher’... and a crashed motor car.”

 

She knew. He didn’t need to say more. It was written in his eyes and all over his face. The ability to read him that had played to their disadvantage the week before was what let her see how much he was hurting. And all of a sudden she understood, oh she understood so much! Why he had been drinking alone the previous night, the reason seemed clearer than crystal water now!

 

But mainly she understood because she had lived through the same circle of hell he was in at the moment. It had happened to her, the terrible misunderstanding, the pain of thinking you’ve lost someone forever. The guilt. The regret. All the unsaid things, the unanswered questions. All the things left undiscovered.

 

She had been in his shoes ten days ago.

 

“Jack. You thought it was me?”

 

He gently nodded his head yes, although he was sure she’d known the answer before she asked the question.

 

She reached out for his hand and held it in both of hers. Jack’s eyes dropped on instinct the moment he felt the warmth of her skin. He was so tired, physically and emotionally, and her touch was like a balm for his body and soul. He wished he could stop time and stay in that moment forever, his hand in hers and the sound of their breathing the only audible thing in the whole house, the whole world. He wanted that moment to never be broken, and had it been in his power he would have stayed that way forever.

 

He knew they couldn’t, though.

 

She spoke first.

 

“Well, I'm still here.”

 

“I know.”

 

“And you’re here, too.”

 

She left her seat and kneeled down in front of him. She had never seen him look so frail, so human. It wasn’t the police officer sitting there, the former soldier that had seen the horrors of war and lived through them, the senior detective inspector that dealt with criminals for a living. He was just a man whose raw fears and feelings were exposed to her, his heart on his sleeve. Phryne understood then the power she held over him, how she could easily destroy him should she want (she’d never want to), how she could easily mend his broken pieces if she chose to do so (she’d always do).

 

He felt her hands cupping his face, and something deep inside him trembled. He loved that woman, and whatever they had he never wanted to lose that. Her friendship, her loyalty, whatever she had to offer he’d willingly take, for a day, or two, or a thousand. He didn’t want his fear to get in the way, not anymore. He wanted her more than he wanted to self-preserve. Whatever pain he had to eventually endure, it was going to be more worth it than just imagining what it could have been like, what it would have been like, for he had already had the taste of a world, a life without her in it- even if just for an hour or two, even if just hypothetically- and he was now sure that there couldn’t be pain worse than that.  

 

“I don’t want to run away from you again” he whispered his confession.

 

“Good thing I’m anchoring you to me, then, Inspector.”

  
She wished nothing more than for him to stay, and as she closed the distance between them and tentatively brushed her lips to his, she found herself wondering if it could be possible that he agreed to stay forever because for the first time in her life she was sure she’d want someone for the long haul.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The lovely @MissingMissFisher proofread this chapter.


	9. Chapter 9

_ Oh, mi corazón se vuelve delator, _

_ Se abren mis esposas _

 

Corazón delator 

Soda Stereo

  
  
  
  


Their first real kiss- no spur of the moment undercover plan, no pretenses, no one else watching, no garlic butter or snails on the dinner table-  was slow, and tentative, and it didn’t get past a soft brush of lips. She had been kneeling on the floor in front of him, and he’d been sitting there wishing once more that he could make time stop and live in that instant forever. 

 

“Have you been sleeping well these past couple of days, Jack?” she asked him, her thumbs slowly drawing circles on the skin of his cheeks. “I know I haven't” she whispered, the memory of some of the nightmares she'd been having lately- Jack's body on the cold, metal slab, bruised and battered, cold, lifeless- still fresh in her mind. She had had her fair share of tossing and turning on the bed, and she wondered if she'd sleep better if she had him by her side. 

 

“I haven't, no” he confessed. 

 

He liked this, the feel of her thumbs on his face. Her perfume was intoxicating, and he wanted to let her consume him with everything she was. He pressed his forehead against hers, and for the first time since he had found out they had mistakenly called her to inform her of his death, he closed his eyes and kept them shut for more than ten seconds without horrible flashes of the woman he loved standing over a body in a cold, dark morgue taking over his mind. 

 

Jack wondered what it would be like to fall asleep like that, their forehead pressed together and their breathings mingled. It had been a long time since he had last slept next to another person, even longer than the date Rosie had finally gone to 'visit’ her sister permanently. He didn't realize he had missed it. Or perhaps, even though it had not happened yet, he just missed sleeping next to Phryne. Was it possible? To miss something you have never had? It wasn't wanton or yearning or longing: he actually felt like he had been missing something and that now that he could touch it with the tip of his fingers he had to grab it.

 

She offered what he wanted and needed before he had a chance to ask for it.

 

“Would you like to sleep with me, Detective Inspector?” He opened his eyes and stared into hers. The eyes he adored. The eyes he was in love with. “And I mean just that: sleep,” she clarified in case he thought she had something else in mind. “I believe we both need it, and it would be a shame if you went home alone, and I stayed here alone when we could be…, well, less alone together.”

 

She smiled at him, and he smiled back. Phryne realized how tired she really was, and she could see written on his handsome face that he was emotionally and physically tired as well. She wanted to help him stop aching, wanted to help him feel better, and maybe she also knew that close proximity with him, shared emotional intimacy, would do her good, too. She craved him physically, sexually, but she was dead on her feet and so was he. They needed to sleep, and Phryne found herself wishing he'd say yes, because she liked to imagine that he was feeling the same: that he could go home and try to get some sleep, but that he'd rather stay with her and keep each other company in case slumber insisted on eluding them. 

 

“I'll stay every time you want me, Phryne,” he whispered “for as long as you want me.”

 

“I don't believe in promises because they're usually meant to be broken, but I believe in instinct and hunches,” she said “and something tells me I may want you to stay for a long time.”

 

He cupped her face with his long, strong hands. 

 

“Then stay I will.”

 

He followed her into her boudoir, and only communicating with her eyes she asked for permission to help him out of his clothes. She didn't pressure him, and he decided on his own to help her out or hers and into a beautiful silk robe. It felt new, because it was, the discovery of the other's person touch. But at the same time there was an intimacy, a familiarity to it they they had rarely experienced with anyone else. It was almost as if they had been always meant to be. 

 

He kissed the tip of her nose delicately as they stood by the bed, him in his underwear and her naked body only covered by the silk robe, which she left open. It was sweet, the sexual tension and energy lessened by their tiredness. 

 

As they got under the duvet, they both found themselves smiling and at peace with everything that was still unsaid, unreached, undiscovered, because they knew they'd wake up by the other's side the following morning and that they would have time to solve all that. Just like they would solve Gerty Haynes’ murder. Just like they would always be willing to solve everything else. 

 

It was, after all, what they did best.

 

There were kisses and touches here and there, but they were soft and brief and felt like the caresses of a butterfly's wings, and nothing became too serious or too heated. They rested their heads on the same pillow and lay there, content to be where they were, relieved that the misunderstandings and their rears and stubbornness hadn't gotten the best or them.

 

They were still whole, they were no longer broken. 

 

“Promise me you'll drive that car as safely as you know how to,” he whispered, referencing to the rally that would take place soon. He knew Phryne would be taking Gerty’s place behind the wheel, knew how much it meant to her that the Ladies Team won. She would do anything in her power to make sure the victory was theirs, and he would not stop her or ask her not to do it. He was just asking that she were careful, or at least as careful as she could be while driving a vehicle.

 

“I promise that I won't do anything I consider dangerous to me and to others.” It was an honest promise, and it was enough for them both. “Do you trust me with your life, Jack?” He nodded his head, even though the question was purely rhetoric “Then I ask you that you please trust me with my own.”

 

“I thought that was implicit, Miss Fisher, when I told you a moment ago that I trust you with mine.” 

 

“We will be fine, Inspector.” He took her hand in his and kissed every one of her digits, his eyes closing on their own accord when his lips met her sweet flesh. “I never gave up hope, Jack.” She whispered. “A part of me was waiting for you to show up tonight, drink my whisky, beat me at a game of draughts.” They both laughed softly. 

 

“I would have eventually come around, I think, Miss Fisher,” he said, eyes still closed, his lips pressed to her open palm. “I doubt my heart would have let me give you up. I would have eventually come around" he insisted.

 

“I know, Jack.” 

 

“You do?”

 

She could tell he was beginning to fall asleep, the exhaustion finally getting the best or him, and her company and warmth enough to lull him into a deep slumber. 

 

Phryne placed her hand on his chest, where she could feel his strong heartbeat, and answered his question anyway, although she suspected he was no longer listening.

 

“I know because your heart tells me so.”

 

And then she gently pushed him so he could lie on his back, and rested her head on his bare chest, for after ten long days or mixed emotions, angst and misunderstanding, she wanted to be lulled to sleep by the sounds of his tell-tale heart.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I want to thank you all for reading this story. I want to thank you for the kudos, and for the wonderful and encouraging comments you have written. I want to thank you because knowing you are there makes me want to write more, and better. 
> 
> And thank you, @MissingMissFisher, for proofreading every single chapter.
> 
> I hope you enjoyed this story as much as I did. The place it holds in my heart is very important now. I hope it's managed to find its place in your hearts, too.


End file.
